Our Daily Sykes #121 – The Pendleton Roundup

Horace Sykes’ slides include few urban scenes with the exception of celebrations like these of the Pendleton (Oregon) Roundup. The spectacle of horse logging (top) and bareback riding (bottom) are paraded here. I don’t know the year, although there is enough information here to easily determine it if we had ready access to the local library’s Pendleton Room. There’s an imperfect hint on the marquee of the Rivoli. Besides the local “Indian Vaudeville,” which would have been a stage presentation, the theater is showing the who-done-it mystery “Charlie Chan at Treasure Island” (in San Francisco.) The film was released in Sept. 1939. Although this year’s roundup (2010) is also held mid-September, I think it more likely that the Rivoli is showing the Chan film later than 1939. Chan films had legs.

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Sykes took these two Kodachromes from the same position on Main Street between Emigrant and Dorion Avenues. Unfortunately, the row of ornate Victorian structures showing in the top view has been lost with the exception of the two story white structure far right, the one with a sign reading, in part, Olympia.

Thanks Matthew. Gadz how or why do they destroy such fancywork. The urge for modernity. Your link notes that it was destroyed in 1960. Right in the thick of such razings nation-wide. It wanted to be like the slick store next door with the minimal facade. What they got instead was a dull storefront with no memoires. You can visit that block now sort of on Google Earth – the street views – but only from the corners, and that from Emigrant shows it best. They did not take the Google Street View Mobile directly down Main Street. Strange..